The present invention generally relates to an electronic device using a microphone. More specifically, the invention relates to an apparatus for reducing background and wind noise to a microphone.
Many modern electronic devices incorporate voice communication capabilities. An example of a commoditized voice communication-capable electronic device is a cellular phone, which is often configured to function with an earphone and microphone combination device, defined herein as a “headphone”. Because an electronic device incorporating voice communication capabilities (e.g. a cellular phone, a “smart phone” with personal computer or personal data assistant (PDA) capabilities, and etc.) is frequently configured to operate in a mobile environment, reducing background noise or wind noise undesirably feeding into its microphone is important in high-fidelity telecommunications.
A headphone incorporating a microphone and an earphone is commonly provided to a consumer as part of an original packaging for a voice communication-capable electronic device or is optionally purchasable in stores. For most headphones in the market today, plastic or metal windscreens are commonly used to achieve background and wind noise reduction. Sometimes, foam-based windscreen sponges are also used to make the background and wind noise reduction more effective. A conventional foam-based windscreen sponge typically uses an elastic hole on one side of the sponge to provide an entry and exit pathway for encapsulating a microphone casing containing a microphone. Therefore, the conventional foam-based windscreen sponge is usually ideal for a microphone casing with an electrical connection on only one side of the microphone casing.
If the microphone casing has electrical connections on two or more sides of the microphone casing, the conventional foam-based windscreen sponge with an elastic hole only on one side of the sponge typically cannot be used. Furthermore, even if the conventional foam-based windscreen sponge had geometrically-matching elastic holes to a microphone casing with multiple sides of electrical connections, it is difficult to provide a convenient encapsulation or removal of the sponge from the microphone. For example, because a wired “headphone” incorporating a wired microphone casing typically has at least two sides of electrical connections for the wired microphone casing, the wired microphone casing available in the market currently typically does not have a foam-based windscreen sponge on an exterior surface of the wired microphone casing.
Although some wired microphone casings with at least two sides of electrical connections still incorporate a wind screen or an internal windscreen sponge, the current trend of miniaturization of microphones and microphone casings in headphones for voice communication-capable electronic devices makes conventional wind screens or internal windscreens sponges difficult to incorporate, often resulting in a less-than-ideal background and wind noise reduction.
Accordingly, a novel apparatus designed to be used with numerous types of microphone casing configurations for background and wind noise reduction can provide significant advantages to headphones for voice communication-capable electronic devices.